Tiges

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This machine was an impulse buy in an airport in Japan. I've had really good use out of it. I've used it for recording live bands, interviews and live-to-air music performances, for replay (with permission) on local radio. It has seen a lot of use in the community radio station that I worked in for two years. I've also tried it out recording animal calls in the field; frogs, birds, insects, etc. And, as I suspect most people who have bought this walkman have done, I've used it for listening to the radio and recorded music in the dentist's waiting room and on public transport. I think it's a brilliant piece of gadgetry, and I'm impressed with the sound quality, the battery life and ease of recharging. It's totally reliable, and for all the above it probably deserves five stars.

Now for my gripes - and the reasons I give it only four stars. My original intention was to record animal calls, and BURN THEM TO CD. The SonicStage software that came with the NF810, however, prevents this quite effectively. As page 114 of the user's manual states "Tracks that are recorded on the Net MD using a mcirophone or through an analog or digital connection cannot be transferred to the computer or copied."

If anyone has thought of a simple way to bypass this restriction, I would love to hear from you.

Secondly, I have had no luck finding a purpose-built mic to match this machine. It's as if the mic input was an afterthought. I'm making do with a rather shoddy-looking video camera mic (Hama RMZ-14) which has two sensitivity levels, and a jerry-built connector jack. Despite the appearance, this setup makes surprisingly good recordings but is prone to picking up the noise of the minidisc motor. Any suggestions to avoid this? Would lengthening the connector cable (which is currently only 40cm long) be a good idea?

Meryl Arbing

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 6.00 votes

Price Paid:  $200.00 from Outlet store

Summary:
I blame Minidisc for spoiling me. I had tried MP3 (including the trendy 'white' one) but found the lacking and disappointing in sound quality. Once I was introduced to MD, I have no more interest in MP3.

Strengths:
inexpensive, removable media means unlimited and infinitely variable play lists and all your 'eggs' aren't in one fragile basket. It is essential that I have microphone recording capability and this gives me extraordinary results in a pocketable package. Battery life puts all the MP3 players that I hca tried to shame and, with the ability to attach an external battery pack, I can go for days. The minidisc media is extraordinarily cheap compared to CF cards and microdrives and 1000x more robust. Sound quality is much better than MP3 (at all sampling levels)

Weaknesses:
MD is poorly supported in North America because they have all jumped on the MP3 cash cow. It is hard to find MD hardware.

Similar Products Used:
iPOd, Rio, tape walkman